Posted on 04/19/2002 8:35:00 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
HAVANA - Cuba sent a chill across Latin America by characterizing regional neighbors as "Judases" for their plan to support an annual U.N. vote calling for Cuba to examine its human rights record.
A majority of Latin American nations have said they plan to join the vote expected Friday before the U.N. Human Relations Commission in Geneva, asking Cuba's communist government to grant its citizens individual liberties such as freedom of speech, the press, association, assembly.
The administration of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is among few in the hemisphere expected to side with Cuba and vote against the measure. Cuba backed Chavez's return to power on Sunday after a two-day military coup.
"The government of the United States - using its preferred weapons of pressure and blackmail and with the humiliating servility of some governments in the region - seeks tomorrow in Geneva to execute a new maneuver against Cuba," the Communist Party daily Granma said Thursday.
The U.S. government was acting "through its Latin American Judases," Granma said in a brief article announcing an evening program examining Friday's expected vote.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry alleged in a statement read on the program that U.S. delegates to the commission had been calling African delegates into a local cafeteria "one by one," pressuring them to vote for the resolution and threatening to cut off financial aid to their countries if they don't.
It was too early to know if the 53-member commission would pass this year's more gently worded resolution, which gives a nod to Cuba's extensive social services and makes a veiled reference to difficulties caused by the U.S. trade embargo. But it seemed headed for a close vote.
The United Nations commission has voted to censure Cuba every year over the past decade except 1998. Last year the vote was a tight 22-20 in favor of condemning Cuba. Another 10 members abstained and Congo was absent.
Censure by the U.N. body brings no penalties but draws international attention to a country's rights record.
While Cuba sees the upcoming vote as betrayal, nations involved say this year's measure does not condemn Cuba outright, as in the past.
Mexico, the only Latin American country that refused to break diplomatic relations with Cuba after Castro's 1959 revolution, is joining this year's vote as "a positive declaration for human rights," President Vicente Fox said this week.
Fox said the decision was made also because the proposal condemns the U.S. trade embargo. Mexico has traditionally abstained on the vote.
Other hemispheric nations on the commission that say they will back the resolution are its sponsors Uruguay and Costa Rica, as well as Argentina, Canada, Chile, El Salvador Guatemala, and Peru. Brazil and Ecuador, also on the commission, abstained on last year's vote.
The European Union has said its members on the commission will also back the measure. Most of the African, Asian and Middle Eastern nations on the commission are expected to side with Cuba.
This year's proposal contains softer language than in the past. It recognizes Cuba's efforts to provide citizens with social services "despite an adverse international environment" - an apparent reference to the embargo. And it "invites the government of Cuba to make efforts to obtain similar advances in the area of human, civil and political rights."
The measure also asks Cuba to let a U.N. rights representative visit the island to help officials comply with the resolution - a suggestion Cuba has rejected.
Foreign Minister Felipe Perez Roque said last week that Cuba opposed the resolution as meddling in its internal affairs - even if it isn't an outright condemnation.
Castro's administration insists it respects human rights better than most countries by guaranteeing its people broad social services such as free health care and education.
International groups complain that Cuba does not guarantee civil rights such as free speech, press, assembly, association and movement, or political rights such as the ability to peacefully change the government.
Capitalism's on the sly in Cuba [Excerpt] By way of explanation for his illicit trade, he holds up his right hand and says, "Look at this." His thumb and two adjacent fingers are missing. Six years ago, Miguel caught his wrist in the bakery mixer, badly mangling it. A month later, his fingers were amputated because he could not afford the three pills needed daily to induce circulation. They cost $1 apiece, and, at the time, he was paid in bread -- six loaves a day. [End Excerpt]
The administration of Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez is among few in the hemisphere expected to side with Cuba and vote against the measure. Cuba backed Chavez's return to power on Sunday after a two-day military coup.
This isn't a useless exercise. No international effort to press the regime into better behavior is wasted. This year, the human-rights vote has turned into a remarkable chance to send strong signals to a government that is an anachronistic aberration.
For the first time, the Cuba resolution, commendably initiated by Uruguay, has been crafted and broadly supported by Latin American nations.
IMPRISONED, ISOLATED
''The message that Latin America is sending is loud and clear,'' said Ana Navarro, the head of Nicaragua's delegation to the U.N. Commission in Geneva. She has been lobbying for approval of the resolution, which now has some 26 cosponsors.
``The Castro regime is a 43-year-old totalitarian regime in a hemisphere where every other government is democratically elected. It is not like the rest of us.''
Exactly how Cuba differs is obvious in how it treats its citizens. Vladimiro Roca, one of Cuba's celebrated activists, has suffered in prison for nearly five years, mostly in isolation. His ''crime'' was to publicly call for a multiparty democracy in the essay The Homeland Belongs to All of Us. For this, he was convicted of sedition and still languishes in a fetid cell, as detailed on today's Otherviews Page.
For Mr. Roca, hundreds of other political prisoners and the 11 million Cubans on the island, the quest for basic human rights is a daily struggle. The resolution is a study in diplomacy. It calls upon Cuba's government to make ''progress in respect of human rights, civil and political rights.'' It also asks that the U.N. Commissioner for Human Rights send a representative to Cuba to monitor progress.
Cuba's regime, of course, insists that it will never accept a monitor. It never allowed entry to the U.N. special rapporteur that the commission assigned to Cuba from 1991 to 1997. No country that respects human rights should have a problem with such scrutiny.
Cuba's foreign minister has been decrying U.S. ''manipulation'' of the measure, and its delegates in Geneva have been using their usual threats and tantrums to try to scare up support. The reason they resort to bullying is transparent: There's no legitimate justification for the systematic abuse of human rights committed by Cuba's police state.
MEXICO SIGNS RESOLUTION
Even the Latin American allies that Cuba has long counted on for support are tired of the charade. They're fed up with the stunts and tirades of a doddering dictator. After years of abstaining or voting against resolutions chastising Cuba, Mexico notably signed on to the resolution as a cosponsor this week. Cuba is exceptional in its disregard for fundamental human rights, and the international community must call it to account. We commend Uruguay and Nicaragua for their leadership. We welcome that and commend Mexico for its decision to join in this resolution. [End]
Mexico Leaves Castro's Cuba Behind*** Once upon a time, Mexico and Cuba were best buddies in the Western Hemisphere. Brandishing the banners of nonintervention and self-determination, both countries provided each other with unconditional support and kept quiet about their mutual lack of democratic development. Those days are over, and today relations between Cuba and Mexico are at an all-time low, for all the right reasons. Mexico's foreign policy toward Cuba is changing, and Fidel Castro is furious about it. The comandante is lashing out against Jorge Castaneda, Mexico's minister of foreign affairs--calling him a lackey of the United States--out of sheer desperation and growing isolation.... This tempest in the Cuba-Mexico teapot will pass. Meanwhile, Mexico's foreign policy will have changed and for the better. The principle of the protection of human rights will prevail in Mexico and elsewhere. As Castaneda's father, Mexico's minister of foreign affairs 20 years ago, said: "Friend, when you defend principles instead of interests, you never lose." ***
Birds of a feather .....
Cuban President Fidel Castro, left, and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez wave to a crowd while touring Canaima National Park in eastern Venezuela in a canoe in this Aug. 12, 2001 file photo. (AP Photo/HO, Miraflores Presidential Palace, Egilda Gomez)
Interesting, isn't it?
[Full Text] GENEVA - In a knife-edge vote, the top United Nations human rights watchdog on Friday called on Cuba to grant its citizens individual liberties such as freedom of speech, the press, association and assembly.
The resolution, passed 23-21 with 9 abstentions at the U.N. Human Rights Commission, also said Cuba's communist authorities should let a U.N. rights representative visit the island to help officials comply with the resolution — a suggestion Cuba has rejected.
But, in an apparent reference to the 40-year U.S. embargo, the resolution at the 53-nation commission also recognized Cuban government efforts to "give effect to the social rights of the population despite an adverse international environment."
Cuba insists it respects human rights better than most countries by guaranteeing its people broad social services such as free health care and education and says rich nations that fail to protect the poor are in no position to preach.
"None of (the resolution's) sponsors has the moral authority to judge human rights in Cuba," Cuban Ambassador Jorge Ivan Mora Godoy told the commission.
The resolution was proposed by Uruguay and co-sponsored by several fellow commission members from Latin American and Europe.
The United States also was a co-sponsor. The country is not a member of the commission this year, for the first time since 1947, but is present as an observer. Observer nations can act as co-sponsors.
Cuba earlier said regional neighbors would be "Judases" if they supported the resolution. Havana claimed the United States was responsible for the resolution and was using strong arm tactics to lobby support for the vote. U.S. officials have denied that.
The commission has voted to censure Cuba every year over the past decade except 1998.
Cuba won the backing of many of the African, Asian and Middle Eastern nations on the commission.
Chinese Ambassador Sha Zukang said the anti-Cuba resolution had "nothing to do whatsoever with the purpose of the commission." He proposed a counter-resolution calling for "no action," which was defeated 24-23, with 6 abstentions.
China has used no action motions to block scrutiny of its own record at the commission in the past.
In another vote earlier Friday, the commission decided to avoid discussion of a European Union resolution condemning abuses in Zimbabwe.
Full debate on the subject was blocked after Nigeria introduced a no action motion.
The resolution criticized Zimbabwe for its alleged flawed election and political intimidation by supporters of President Robert Mugabe.
But developing country delegates said the EU had ignored the problems caused by Zimbabwe's past as a British colony. The country won independence in 1980.
On a 16-15 vote, with 22 abstentions, the commission also rejected a resolution on Chechnya proposed by European nations, Canada and the United States.
The resolution criticized abuses by Russian forces and rebels in the breakaway region, called for an end to the fighting there and asked Russia to set up a commission of inquiry into human rights violations.
Russian Ambassador Leonid Skotnikov accused the sponsors of double standards, claiming the Chechnya conflict is part of the international war against terrorism.
Russia had been censured over Chechnya at the commission for the past two years.
The commission also voted to condemn rights violations in Iraq, including repression of opposition, political killings, torture and rape. It noted that there had been no improvement despite previous resolutions.
Censure by the U.N. body brings no penalties but draws international attention to a country's rights record.
(jf-nk)
In the mind of a liberal/communist---dictator...reality is irrelevant!
they see it as a slave rebellion---takeover...
prodopeletarian paradise---big daddy champ castro knocking out the ranch--plantation foreman!
Rope-a-dope artists trying to get a lucky punch in--ko!
Reverse slavery!
cuba = jonestown/guyana---
takes a mutant like clinton---the first black president...
and the first black attorney general---reno...
to get the devilcrats excited--motivated--marching!
but your a communist---jail warden right?
In America there are no political prisoners...traitors can be president---congressdupes and senadoperstoo!
Foreign funded too...that's called treason---never heard of that?
Where do I send my husband and children to get the gene removed?
You and your agenda. You must live in Lower Palm Beach.
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